Roger Moorhouse - The Devils' Alliance - Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941

Indeed, rather than declaring war on the Soviets, the British were keen to build a connection with Moscow so as to forestall the specter of a full-blown German-Soviet alliance. To this end, one bright spark in the cabinet even suggested a nonaggression pact, until it was pointed out that such arrangements “stink somewhat since August 23.” Instead, trade was to be employed as the icebreaker. In the first week of October, an agreement was made for the exchange of £1 million of Soviet timber in return for rubber and tin. Other commodities were also considered, including lead, copper, cocoa, and machine tools. Yet, though not without success, the negotiations were shot through with paranoia regarding Soviet motives and actions. Talks were linked, for instance, to the fate of some sixteen British ships then detained in Soviet ports, and the British side raised concerns that the Soviets might be acting in bad faith and might arrange for their outgoing shipments to be torpedoed by German submarines.

Paradoxically, in the same week that the trade agreement was signed, a memorandum by the British Chiefs of Staff gave a remarkably prescient appreciation of the new strategic situation created by the Nazi-Soviet Pact. It made for sobering reading. Not only could the USSR “do serious harm to the Allied cause while remaining nominally neutral,” it argued, but it could also render “the maximum economic assistance” to Germany, thereby slowing the effects of the British economic blockade. In addition, the Baltic states and Finland would be “helpless” in the face of Soviet aggression, and the occupation of Bessarabia was “quite possible.” The memorandum concluded by reminding the British cabinet that “Russia’s abiding aim is to spread world revolution” and suggested that the Nazi-Soviet Pact provided Moscow with a “golden opportunity” to extend “Communistic activities throughout the world.”

This schizophrenic ambivalence—a fear of Soviet ulterior motives entwined with an even greater fear that a lack of engagement might drive Moscow definitively into Hitler’s arms, resulting in a full-blown Nazi-Soviet alliance—characterized British government attitudes toward the Soviet Union that autumn. Against this complex background Winston Churchill coined one of his most famous phrases. In stark contrast to the unequivocally critical attitude struck toward the Germans, in a speech broadcast by the BBC on October 1, Churchill was sympathetic toward the Soviets, despite growing evidence that they were rivaling their Nazi allies in their aggressive intentions toward Poland. Soviet actions in invading Poland, Churchill told his listeners, were driven by “a cold policy of self-interest” but were “necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.” Far from criticizing, Churchill was emollient, as indulgent of his potential Soviet ally as he was damning of his German enemy. “Russia,” he concluded, was “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

Moscow’s invasion of Finland at the end of November 1939, however, would shake profoundly any fragile equilibrium. Given that it destroyed any remaining illusions among Western ruling elites about the true nature of Soviet intentions, the Winter War made a decision on the British position toward the Soviet Union all the more pressing. Already a month before, while Moscow had been ratcheting up the pressure on Finland, some in the British cabinet had begun to consider firmer action toward the Soviets. At the end of October, therefore, at the urging of the British ambassador in Helsinki, Foreign Secretary Halifax had requested a report from the UK Chiefs of Staff on the merits and demerits of a British declaration of war on the USSR.

That report returned with a definitive recommendation not to declare war on the Soviets, but still the idea did not die. In mid-December, during a discussion about the possibilities of sending material aid to the Finns, it was raised once more, with Halifax again informing the cabinet that he “had been examining broadly the implications of a conflict between ourselves and Russia” but conceding that he was “not sure how the matter should be handled.” Halifax certainly faced a conundrum. His intention, as he had stated to a colleague, was to “drive a wedge” between the Soviets and the Germans, to disrupt the economic and political relationship between them. Yet, trade with Moscow had not served its ulterior purpose of bringing about a moderation of Soviet actions, as the Soviet invasion of Finland had demonstrated dramatically. Moreover, it was not in Britain’s interest to supply a state that was “benevolently neutral” toward the Reich, as it was feared that “exports to the USSR were probably tantamount to exports to Germany.” However, a declaration of war did not make military or strategic sense, as it would only increase the number of Britain’s enemies while potentially serving only to further cement the German-Soviet relationship.

In time, a course of action between those two extremes emerged. While neither of the previous options was discarded entirely, it was suggested that Britain might look to frustrate the relationship by involving the Soviet Union in strategic and economic difficulties so that she would in turn be “less able to help Germany.” One strand of this policy consisted of hampering Soviet international trade so as to prevent vital raw materials from falling into German hands, thereby, in effect, extending the British blockade of Germany to include the Soviet Union. Thus, British authorities began intercepting and detaining Soviet vessels such as the Selenga , which was stopped at Hong Kong in January 1940 with a cargo of tungsten, antimony, and tin, bound for Vladivostok.

If nothing else, such actions certainly brought the Soviets back to the negotiating table. In March, the Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan Maisky, asked in a meeting with Halifax whether the British government would be willing to resume stalled trade negotiations and, if so, whether a first step might be the halting of the interceptions of Soviet ships. Halifax responded coolly, referring disparagingly to the Soviet government’s policy of keeping “the war between the Allies and Germany going, to their own advantage,” but he did later raise the question in cabinet as to whether—as part of any possible agreement—the Soviets might be persuaded to restrict their deliveries of oil to Germany. Evidently, the irritant of intercepting Soviet shipping might yet bear fruit.

At the same time as these talks were taking place, the British and French were planning something altogether bolder. For a number of years, the vulnerability of the Soviet Union’s primary oil-producing region, centered on Baku in the Caucasus, had been well appreciated in the West. Given that it produced fully 75 percent of the USSR’s oil and was only around two hundred kilometers from the Turkish border, Baku was rightly seen as Stalin’s Achilles’ heel.

Thus, when schemes were being considered in London and Paris, in the winter of 1939–1940, by which pressure might be brought to bear on Moscow, the idea of targeting Baku came to the fore. The plan had a curious complex of motivators. In the first instance, those responsible for drawing it up could point to the region’s vulnerability to air raiding and speculate on the possible impact that such an attack would have not only on the Soviet economy but also, crucially, on that of Nazi Germany. Indeed, the collusion between Moscow and Berlin appears to have triggered a fundamental reappraisal of British geostrategic priorities. Aware that Germany would be virtually immune to the traditional British tactic of the blockade because of its economic relationship with the USSR, British planners perceived an urgency to strangle the new joint entity—“Teutoslavia,” as the hawkish diplomat Robert Vansittart dubbed it—in its crib. “We should strike at Russo-Germany,” Vansittart told the cabinet in the spring of 1940, “before it gets too strong.”